This is one of my new favorites from StarWars. The story fit nicely between Empire and Jedi. It introduced new characters and gave them depth. Also it furthered the original set of characters. Highly recommend this, especially for people who love the original trilogy.

It seems inconceivable I somehow did not read this book back in the late '90s when I was devouring anything "Star Wars".

Part of it was the backlash "Shadows" was getting at the time in the genre magazines, especially "Sci-fi Universe", still the best science fiction mag of all time outside of the old "Cinefantastique". And part of it was there was so much Extended Universe stuff hitting the shelves, between the "Heir to Empire" trilogy and "The Jedi Academy" trilogy and the "X-Wing" series and the Dark Horse Comics etc., there was plenty to indulge in and almost all of it was really good material written by top notch scribes.

Well now I have read it and can tell you those "Shadows" backlash reviews back in the day were just that, emotional reactions reviewers have when they feel the need to push back on something wildly popular. If you were around in the late '90s and are a "Star Wars" fan you know what I am talking about. Because, bottom line, "Shadows of the Empire" is a glorious novel; a rich, vivid tapestry of riveting drama, political manipulations, and colorful action adventure.

Prince Xizor is a fantastic character! The second best Extended Universe character of all time behind Mara Jade. Xizor is Tony Montana, Lex Luthor, Gordon Gekko, Michael Corleone and Al Capone rolled into one with physical (including sexual seduction) abilities that match his cold, calculating, intellect. If ever there was someone who could go up against Darth Vader and Palpatine and make for a worthy opponent, this is the guy.

The viewpoints are dead-on, the pacing perfect, and Perry gets all of the familiar characters just right. This book excels at world-building just as much as it does characters. The setting is richly detailed, a vast underworld of the "Star Wars" universe hinted at in the final act of "Empire" and the opening set-piece in "Jedi" and fully explored here in an irresistible fashion by author Steve Perry.

At its core, "Shadows of the Empire" is an epic gangster story that makes fantastic use of the most interesting period in all of the "Star Wars", the time between "Empire" and "Jedi". This ranks right up there with my favorite "Star Wars" EU book of all-time, right alongside K.W. Jeter's Boba Fett/Bounty Hunter Trilogy, Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" trilogy, the "X-Wing" series, and the Dark Horse comic "Dark Empire".

Bottom line: "Shadows of the Empire" is pure exhilarating joy for fans of classic "Star Wars".

The Empire triumphant. The Rebellion in tatters.

Han Solo is in the slimy hands of Jabba the Hutt. Luke Skywalker surreptitiously works to complete his training on Tatooine. Darth Vader finds himself facing palace intrigue while the scowling and manipulative Emperor Palpatine stokes the fires of mistrust and discontent. All this and battles…many, many battles. This is Shadows of the Empire, perhaps one of the great non-cannon novels in the franchise.

As Star Wars novels go, Shadows of the Empire stands out as among the best. It is well written, dives deep into the personalities of the characters, and provides us with a solid glimpse of what occurred in the year between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. It is a totally original story, and one that fills the gaps between the two films quite nicely. It introduces a new villain in Prince Xizor—a scheming Falleen Crime Lord who seems to have no loyalties but to his own rising power base and exacting a bitter revenge against Darth Vader.

The author conveys the desperation inherent in Princess Leia as she works to mount a rescue mission with the help of old friends and new allies, only to be caught in the middle of a power struggle between Vader and Xizor. While not considered part of the "new cannon" as dictated by Disney, Shadows of the Empire still serves as a valuable example of a thrilling narrative that captivates its audience until the very last page. The author possesses a remarkable talent for narrative structure and does not seek to pander to tokenism and literary sleight of hand like the ignoble writer of the more-often-than-not lamentable Aftermath series.

I recommend including this novel in the pantheon of cannon storylines. It was plotlines like this that introduced a new generation of fans to the Star Wars universe.

An entertaining bridge novel between The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. Context is brought to Darth Vader's feelings about Luke and his motivations for keeping him alive. Luke matures physically and emotionally from Jedi-in-training to Jedi Knighthood. Dash is 'okay' as a character if you forget he is written as a "Han Solo stand-in." I especially love the dynamic between Chewie and Leia. Despite her not being fluent in Shyriiwook, most of the time she understands the gist of his comments through his body language. Their bickering is hilarious and there is an undertone of protectiveness between the two of them: Chewie fulfilling his life debt to Han and Leia respecting that.

This was one of the better Star Wars books that I read. I can easily see how there was a big marketing campaign with video game ties ins built around this big in the mid 90s. The thing I liked most about this book was that something happened on just about every page. There was very little down time and I could swear that I could hear the John Williams soundtrack in the background at times. Also, the main villain, Xizor, was very credible opponent to Luke, Lea, and even Vader. Both Xizor and Vader wanted to capture Luke but for different reasons (Vader to turn to the dark side and Xizor for money/power) so they seemed to work together but yet also wanted to destroy each other without wanting to let on that this was an additional goal. I was a clever twist. I enjoyed this one a great deal and if you aspire to be a Jedi as I then this is a must read.

I wasn't sure about this one because some reviews said it was 'a must for all Star Wars fans!' and others said 'only for the die-hard fan.' I would say it's somewhere in between. If you're into Star Wars fiction, it's worth a read, but I do think the quality is on the mediocre scale.

The story itself is fun, and they get enough content in there to make it its own story, not just a 'filler'. The villain, Prince Xizor, head of the Black Sun crime syndicate, is interesting, and I liked his rivalry with Vader (because it makes Vader more interesting), but Xizor's bits did tend to be long-winded. His POV sections and monologues could have been paired down a lot.

There is a Han substitute, since he's currently frozen in carbonite, in the form of Dash Rendar -a cocky smuggler/pirate/mercenary/ace pilot who 'only cares about getting paid'. It was made a little less irksome because Luke and Leia are constantly comparing him to Han, so their similarities are noted, and he was kind of fun, but I honestly would have liked it better if the twist was he genuinely only cared about getting paid. As it stood, it felt rather like a carbon copy.

Speaking of Han, one thing I really liked is Leia struggling with this question of what might happen after they -if they ever- free Han. She loves him. She's head over heels in love with him. She told him so. And he said 'I know.' Does that mean he loves her too? Or...or... I just loved this, because it's completely genuine.

And speaking of feelings, Perry had fun messing with readers. This is before Luke and Leia are twins, right? And Luke still totally has a crush on Leia, right? And Leia cares about Luke, but not the same way she cares about Han, and why are feelings so COMPLICATED?! I laughed and I winced. (But don't worry; there was no more kissing.)

The story is full of hints and events leading into Return of the Jedi, right down to the Bothans gaining 'critical information' that Luke is sure he'll be briefed on soon enough.

The best part about this book by far was getting inside Darth Vader's head, even for a little bit. There are tidbits and tiny, tiny hints about how RotJ is going to end, without making him sympathetic. I loved that they were so subtle it did not ruin his eventual turn.

On that note, I do wish Perry had given us one final hint at the end. It seemed like the perfect opportunity, and it was completely passed up. This novel supposedly shows the events between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, where Luke goes from 'NOOOOOOOOOOO!' of finding out Darth Vader is his dad to 'I can still sense the good in him.' It didn't occur to me until I was reading this book, which has Luke still dealing with this revelation, that this transition of his was kind of...sudden. I felt this would have been the perfect time for Luke to sense something still good in Vader, because in this story Vader admits to himself that a part of Anakin has survived in him -and he's determined to destroy it. He realizes a part of the Jedi is still alive inside and that it's keeping him from fully embracing the dark side. For the last 50 pages I was waiting and waiting for Luke to sense this in Vader, to have this realization, but no. A perfect moment squandered. *sigh*

Like I said, it's worth a read if you like the Star Wars fiction, because if nothing else, it helps you to embrace the universe and, as you can see, really deepens your appreciation for it by getting you to analyze and question all the little details.

El Príncipe Xizor es un MA-MA-MA-MA-MARRANOOOO

Une relecture. Un de mes préférés avec la triologie de Zahn dans l'univers étendu

3.5 stars, actually, but as that's not an option...

SPOILERS AHOY

This was a reread of one of the very first Star Wars novels I ever read, way back when I was twelve years old. I worried about how it would hold up, wondered how much I'd forgotten, and was curious to see how it slotted into all the prequels and novels that have since come out.

It's hard to deny that there's something about Shadows that is just classic - it at least used to be one of the more well known EU titles, and it fills in what happens to Luke, Leia, Chewie, Lando, Artoo, and Threepio in the interim between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

The book centers around the introduction of a character who was created by Steve Perry, Prince Xizor, a Falleen crime lord who serves as a rival to Darth Vader for the Emperor's favor. Just as before, I really enjoyed watching Vader contend with this sort of competition, and I feel like the moments of insight we get into Vader's mind really do mesh with the man who was Anakin Skywalker that we came to know in the prequels.

Perry does a fantastic job of capturing every character's voice from the films, which is definitely the most enjoyable aspect of the book. It exists in that awkward period of time in which Leia and Luke still are nursing a lot of confused sexual tension with each other, but I think it manages to handle it well, as they struggle to figure out exactly what it is that they feel for each other, without it ever venturing too far off into the weirdly taboo. The action is great, the humor is there, the feel is unmistakably Star Wars, and it's definitely an enjoyable ride.

I think there are three points worth mentioning that are arguably rocky.

1) This is the introduction of Dash Rendar, who serves as an unapologetic Han replacement since he's frozen in carbonite for the length of the book. They very specifically wanted to contrast him to Han, and I actually do appreciate the ways in which they did - by creating a character who is a swaggering mercenary-minded jackass and acknowledging that they were creating someone who was supposed to be very DIFFERENT from Han, there's a recognition that a lot of the tropes that are often ascribed to Han Solo by fanboys are just not actual aspects of his character. They are, however, part of Dash, but it still reads like he's a poor man's Han, living in his shadow and existing to fill in the 'gap' in the trio. I really wish, honestly, that Perry would have just let Lando do the job - some of my favorite parts of the book involve watching Lando's friendship with Leia and Luke evolve in the wake of his 'betrayal' on Cloud City.

2) Xizor. I have a lot of problems with the term Mary Sue, but I'm not fond of the term Gary Stu either, and that's something that Xizor gets accused of being often. It's easy to see why the writing revolving around him makes some people cringe: he's a master martial artist, impossibly rich, intelligent, handsome, built, has endless contacts at his disposal, and, well. There's that whole 'secretes pheromones' thing that seems like it jumped right off the pages of a 15 year old's fanfiction. While I'll get more to that in my last point, I'm going to say that Xizor WASN'T AS BAD as I remember, if only because this time I realized that scenes with Xizor are almost always written from HIS POINT OF VIEW. We can talk about characters who are impossibly perfect, but the fact of the matter is Xizor's hubris is his number one weakness, and never is that more well-illustrated in the very narration of his thoughts about himself. Of course Xizor sounds perfect - he is fully convinced that he is. But clearly, when he is foiled by Leia, then Luke, then Vader, he is anything but.

3) Leia. As the only major female character in this book other than Xizor's sex robot/bodyguard Guri (seriously), Leia was carrying a lot on her shoulders in these early days of Star Wars novels, before a huge stock of other strong females had been introduced and the expected audience of the books widened to include, gasp, women. This is definitely a conflicting book to read for Leia fans: Perry spends a lot of time in her head, which is appreciable, and he doesn't do a terrible job of it - while she does often think about her romantic feelings for Luke and Han, they aren't her primary concern and she more often than not chastises herself not to think about them right now, showing that she has her priorities well in order. But this is also definitely the EU book where Leia is sexualized the most: Xizor becomes sexually obsessed with Leia and spends most of the book trying to "seduce" her. There's no disguising the non-consensual nature of this whole situation, and I wish that Leia had been allowed to snap out of it without any assistance from Chewbacca. Her 'strong will' in the face of Xizor's willingness to basically drug her into submission is repeatedly pointed out, but there's just as much overindulgent internal narrative where she's starting to fall prey to said pheromones, and it's all kind of embarrassing when you consider how Leia got to at least openly murder Jabba when he tried to sexually control her. As a 12 year old girl, it was all a little titillating to read, if only because we don't see a lot in the way of sex in Star Wars novels period, but it's also unfortunate that one of the few times we do, it's an attempted rape of Leia.

All that in mind, I do really like Shadows, and it stood up to the test of time, and slots in well with the canon still. We get to see a side of Vader that we don't often, and the development of the relationships between film characters makes this an important EU read, in my opinion, if not an example of its best writing.

As my entrance into Legends lore, this book did not disappoint. The characters were very faithfully portrayed, especially when compared to the sequel trilogy (or almost any other Disney Star Wars production), and the story was engaging and interesting. I highly recommend reading!

This was excellent. I know 'Shadows' is well known, and has been out quite a while. I'm late getting to a lot of Star Wars novels. I really enjoyed how this story bridged the gap between 'Empire' and 'Jedi', but still managed to be fresh, original, and add memorable characters like Dash Rendar and Xizor. Well worth my time.

I recall this book perfectly connected the times between Empire and Return of the Jedi. Boba Fett versus bounty hunters, the sinister Black Sun org, and Bothan spies! At last, all the classic characters set up for the big moment at Jabba's palace.

So... is this still canon? Why not? I do understand that post-Disney most of the EU had to be thrown away if we are to have the new films, but why disregard the period before that...

As far as I'm concerned, everything which predates that should remain canon. Then, after the Battle of Endor the timeline was split between two different New Republic era alternate realities.

Shadows of the Empire therefore still counts, dammit.